Aren't tulips the best? Too bad they're so short lived. Innit a bummer? At the house I planted a couple hundred along the fence idiotically all in a row with a little bone meal in each hole. They came up like little soldiers. The next year they thinned in some areas and doubled in other areas depending on the amount of sun each received and how the sprinklers hit them. The next year they did that again. The year after that they finally had themselves arranged into proper spontaneous looking patches. That's not the way to go with planting bulbs. A better way is hold a handful of bulbs and toss them straight up in the air then plant them where they land -- for a Zen occurred in nature natural appearance. Then plant hyacinths between them for a contrasting longer lasting ultra spontaneous carefree look that's so impossible to achieve.

Mess with squirrels by planting the bulbs under pieces of thick wire screen. There's also squirrel traps for the kind-hearted and air guns and wrist rockets for the cold-blooded.I also love tulips because they were the first flower I ever drew. This is how a kindergartner does it; draw two w's next to each other connected. Connect the ends by drawing a cup. Then go back to the W's and draw ^'s between each peak of the W's, that's for the other side of the flower. Color the whole thing in, careful to stay inside the lines. Color the bits within the ^'s a different shade. Draw little pistols sticking out. Draw a stem and long sword-like leaves. Perfectly parallel lines make leaves look fake. An elongated pointed 8 shape makes the leaf look twisted. Bend some of the leaves downward for authenticity. Add butterfly, but that's another lesson. >/drawing lesson<

Go to the link Madison Man posted, click introduction to tulips and then 15. Other botanical whatever.

I grow the clusiana varieties, and the linifolia at the bottom of the page is brilliant... they're so red that pictures don't even work... but my absolute favorite is sylvestris, that's on the bottom of the page too.

The only problem with them is that they have to be dug and separated after a few years because they multiply so well and when they're over crowded the blooming suffers. My linifolia looks like a patch of grass this year. :-(

Ron,Have you tried glyphosate to kill existing vegetation in July-August and then sowing the Hesperis seeds and lightly scratching them in to make seed/soil contact? No mulch, fertilizer, or herbicides. Soil well-drained?